Catching up today on one of my favorite podcasts, Being Known.
It’s season 9. They are reviewing chapters from Curt’s latest book, The Deepest Place to deepen our understanding of suffering and the formation of hope.
I hadn’t finished episode 7 on Perseverance, so that’s where I picked up. It was interesting timing.
I’ll post the video for the entire episode for you to view, but here are the lines that spoke most to me:
When we are willing to persevere, we discover over time that we are becoming something different than who we were…It’s often the case that we are not the first to recognize that…Someone else who’s watched us would say we are not the same person.
I love being able to point this out to my friends. They’ll say something that either shows their growth or reveals they have yet to see it. I try to interject my observation to reinforce the work they’ve done, the change they’ve accomplished, and the encouragement to keep going.
Need a shot of reinforcement? Check out the episode.
The level of hope we have today is an indicator of the level of character we’ve developed.
He believes that based on Romans 5:3-4 where Paul wrote that “tribulation produces, perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
We don’t like it, but we know it’s true. So what if we decided to like it? Like spinach. I didn’t like spinach as a kid. Now, I’m a fan. My taste buds have developed.
Given the right time and attention, we can choose to embrace hard times. Rather than run or sulk or wallow, we can declare, “I’m all in for whatever is about to be developed. Bring on the character. Bring on the hope!”
John Gregory 